vncnus Chapter 240 The Warlords: Harry Follows His Will
Chapter 240 The Warlords: Harry Follows His Will
Chapter 240 The Warlords: Harry Follows His Will
Picking up where we left off, Harry led the Hogwarts teachers and students in a deafening roar, a sound so powerful it shook the castle corridors and classroom windows.
Several of Durmstrang's students shouted incessantly, their eyes filled with grief and indignation.
It should be noted that after Nakakarov deserted the battlefield, Lockhart took over the teaching position and became the guiding professor for Durmstrang's students.
Lockhart was originally a silver-tongued man, but he also learned generosity from Harry.
Buy his books, and they'll be sold at a discount of 60% or more; if you're short on cash, you can read them first and pay later; if you're willing to flatter him a few times, he might even show you the draft of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Over time, a deep bond had formed between teacher and student. Now, seeing Lockhart's body mutilated beyond recognition, how could they possibly bear it?
Meanwhile, on the second floor, Maxim, hidden in the shadows, held his breath and peered intently at the scene in the hall, his heart filled with horror.
As the shouts subsided, Harry called out again, "Sisters and brothers, listen up! If there's nothing urgent, hurry and help repair the castle's defenses!"
"If any relatives or friends are in trouble, send a letter to the owl shelter to inform their families! Do not delay!"
Before he finished speaking, everyone responded in unison and immediately dispersed.
In the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, the hall was nearly empty, with only the crackling of torches illuminating the banners and emblems on the stone walls.
Harry looked around again and suddenly saw several shadowy figures huddled in the shadows against the wall in a corner.
Upon closer inspection, I recognized several familiar faces.
The scarred man frowned, and asked suspiciously, "Damn it! What's Malfoy doing here?"
Ron was taken aback when he heard this. He followed Harry's gaze and saw Draco with his back against the stone wall, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed.
He was startled, nearly jumping up, and whirled around to look at Hermione, exclaiming, "Don't tell me Malfoy was involved in protecting Hogwarts too!"
"Actually, I suspect he's looking for his father's body." Hermione narrowed her phoenix eyes and pondered, "But I didn't see any Death Eaters with long white hair—"
Harry, his two companions, and Draco stood in the open, six pairs of eyes burning like torches. Draco, lurking in the shadows, peered sideways, and within moments felt as if he were being pricked by thorns.
He turned his gaze and met Harry's blue eyes directly.
Perhaps knowing he couldn't avoid it, Draco straightened up, lifted his robe, and stepped forward.
This movement startled the two dull-witted men, Crabbe and Gore, who stood to the side, leaving them speechless and their fat faces turning purple.
Four rough hands rubbed together inside the sleeves of his robe, hesitant to follow, truly like a clay figure standing in a temple, or an elephant trapped in a quagmire.
Draco had only taken a few steps when he was already in front of Harry. His gaze swept over the three of them, then he raised his chin arrogantly and said, "What do you want?"
Harry crossed his arms and said with a half-smile, "I'm just standing here, naturally nothing's wrong. But you, instead of going looking for your Death Eater father, you're lingering here as if something's up."
Draco took these words to heart, but he was no longer as agitated as before. His face remained expressionless, and his neck was raised even higher.
"My father made his choices, and I made my own. And what evidence do you have that my father sided with the Dark Lord?"
"The Ministry of Magic's files clearly state that he was subjected to an Imperius Curse!"
The argument grew a bit louder, and after observing from mid-air for a long while, Rowena floated down and said, "He did indeed team up with those two fat lads to ambush a Death Eater, but of course, they only knocked him unconscious."
"If I remember correctly, it was at the bottom of the stairs on the third floor."
Draco's face remained as cold as ice, showing no emotion whatsoever. He simply straightened his spine even more and said, word by word, "Potter, I could have been more explicit. I do hate you."
"I hate you more than I hate the Death Eaters, but I love Hogwarts more than I love myself!"
Having said that, he didn't look back, but turned around, lifted his robe, and strode back to the shadowy corner of the wall.
Leaning against the wall, I finally felt a sense of relief and let out a long breath.
Crabbe and Goyle, those two blockheads, rushed forward like mud statues that had been knocked senseless in a temple. One grabbed his left sleeve, the other gripped his right arm, shouting, "Draco, what were you talking about?"
"Won't Harry Potter attack us, will he?"
"Should we run now?"
"Why are you running?" Draco's head and neck were hidden in the shadows of the wall, his only eyes glancing furtively at Harry's direction. "Don't forget we've already completed the initiation ceremony."
Upon hearing this, the two simpletons fell silent.
After only a short while, Crabbe finally couldn't hold back any longer and pressed his throat, asking, "But why should we side with Potter? Shouldn't we join the Death Eaters?"
Gao Er's eyes widened, and he nodded his chubby head like a hammered rice ball.
Draco's cheek twitched a few times, then he finally took a deep breath, suppressing his anger, and said, "Did Potter have to kneel on the ground and beg the Dark Lord to leave tonight?"
"Is it tomato sauce flowing from the bodies of those Death Eaters?!"
"Can't you two use your eyes and brains for a second?!"
Crabbe and Gore agreed.
Draco stared at the two foolish heads, his anger rising even higher.
Without saying another word, he simply flicked his sleeves and strode towards the Slytherin common room, saying without turning his head, "Let's go. Come with me to find Pansy. I need someone smarter by my side."
Meanwhile, Harry, stroking the intricate patterns on his dagger, watched the three figures depart, exclaiming, "Truly, even a broken ship can yield three pounds of iron, and a dilapidated house can chop five loads of firewood!" He never imagined that Malfoy could utter such earth-shattering words.
Ron glanced at him sideways for a long time, his face still full of disbelief, and said, "Does he have this kind of writing talent? I seriously suspect that he had someone else write it for him—either he spent several months working on it."
Harry, however, ignored this question and turned to Rowena, asking, "Was everything you just said true?"
Rowena shrugged. "Why would I lie to you?"
Harry pondered for a moment, then suddenly snapped his fingers, summoning a house-elf to secretly follow Malfoy, just as he had done with Rozier back then.
Once everything was settled, Rowena stretched lazily, her delicate arms swaying. She reached out and took the crown from Harry's forehead, saying casually, "You probably won't need the crown for a while, will you?"
"If you don't need it, let me study it more carefully. I've recently made some interesting little achievements in the field of magic—"
She spoke lightly, as if unaware of the dozens of corpses lying haphazardly on the stone bricks beside her.
Hermione saw it clearly, hesitated for a moment, and then said, "Ms. Ravenclaw?"
Rowena glanced at her, then smiled and asked, "Is there a problem, Hermione?"
"Don't you feel sad—at least a dozen of these people are your students."
Rowena tilted her head. "Why be sad? Isn't it normal for people to die in war?"
Upon hearing this, Hermione was momentarily stunned.
Rowena reached out and scratched Hermione's chin again, continuing, "They get money from Harry every month on time, they should know what they're doing."
After speaking, his figure gradually faded away, like mist dissipating and snow melting, leaving no trace.
These words were like realism shattering idealism. Harry and Ron, one looking up at the sky and the other counting bricks, remained silent.
After standing there for a moment, Hermione suddenly took a deep breath, her eyes becoming much more serious. She slapped her hand on the dough and asked in a crisp voice, "Speaking of which, has anyone sent a letter to Professor Lockhart's parents?"
Ron, clutching his willow stick, interjected, "He said in his book 'Walking with Trolls' that his mother had passed away."
Harry frowned. "Where are his father now?"
Ron said, "His father was a Muggle, and after his mother died, he lived in the non-magical world with his two Muggle sisters."
"However, their relationship doesn't seem to be very deep—"
Ron, standing beside her, recounted the minutiae of Lockhart's household affairs with remarkable detail. Hermione listened with growing curiosity, and she and Harry exchanged puzzled glances.
Ron knows way too much.
Even fans who have bought the entire Lockhart book series might not be able to answer this kind of question, right?
Ron finished rambling, then looked up and saw the expressions on the two men's faces. Startled, he quickly said, "I heard all this from my mother. She often follows gossip about Lockhart."
"I am someone who passively receives this information —"
Ron was still rambling on and on, but Harry was already lost in thought. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers, summoning a house-elf, and ordered, "Go and search Lockhart's office immediately. If you find any addresses or letters from his relatives, report back to me immediately."
The little elf bowed and accepted the order, then with a crisp "snap," it turned into white smoke and disappeared.
After about half an incense stick's time, white smoke rose again, and the house-elf appeared, saying in alarm, "I'm so sorry, Mr. Harry Potter, I haven't found anything about Professor Lockhart's family—"
"But I found this."
It stretched out its arm, and in its palm was an envelope.
Harry took it and examined it closely. He saw that the ink on the cover was dripping, and a line of large, flowing characters was written in a flamboyant style.
Gilderoy Lockhart's suicide note: Ron and Hermione had already brought the two heads together from the left and right.
Harry strained his fingers, and with a "rip," the seal was torn open, and a roll of parchment rolled out.
When the scroll was unrolled, there was a loud "whoosh" sound, and it seemed to cascade down like a waterfall, extending for more than ten feet.
Harry's eyelids twitched several times, and he glanced again at the headless corpse not far away. Finally, he lowered his head in silence and began to read the first line word by word.
I am Gilderoy Lockhart, and I will be dead by the time you see this.
After reading for about fifteen minutes, the parchment was about a foot long.
Unfortunately, this foot-long passage was filled with boastful and frivolous words, not a single important sentence, which made Harry's forehead veins throb as he read it.
He silently recited the Heart-Cleansing Mantra several times, thinking only of the deceased, and suppressed his anger by reciting it a few more times.
To everyone's surprise, the parchment quietly sprouted another two feet long.
Harry could no longer contain himself. He drew his wand, tapped it against the parchment, and shouted, "Choose carefully!"
In an instant, the ink on the paper surged, and ninety percent of the words melted away like snow. The remaining ten percent of ink flowed and pieced together on its own, condensing into a concise and well-structured passage.
I would like to convert 10% of the royalties from all my writings into pounds sterling and leave it to my family.
Forty percent will be converted into Galleons to compensate the wizards whose life experiences I stole.
The remaining fifty percent was donated to the Boxers. I must say, those years at Hogwarts were the most exciting time of my life; if I could, I would want to be buried there.
By the way, I'm leaving 500 Galleons for my old friend Rita Skeeter, hoping you'll become a true journalist.
After reading it, the three of them remained silent.
Hermione, with her sharp eyes, suddenly noticed the small print at the end of the line, which read "March 27th".
Her brows furrowed, and after a moment's thought, she suddenly said in a deep voice, "This is the day we went to the Albanian forest for reconnaissance."
Harry's heart sank. That day, his family taught him to write a will, but who would have thought that this man would actually grind ink and pick up a pen to write down his affairs so thoroughly.
He carefully folded the suicide note, tucked it into his bosom, and said, "Since the deceased has entrusted something to us, we should fulfill it."
Having said that, he stepped forward, hoisted Lockhart's headless corpse onto his back, called to Ron and Hermione, and strode off toward the Forbidden Forest.
The three of them walked through the forest and over the brambles for four or five miles, until they came to a wide open space surrounded by ancient trees, which was the place where people and horses used to gather.
Harry had intended to ask these astrological and divination experts to choose an auspicious burial site, but to his surprise, the place was deserted and there was no trace of their lives.
Ron looked around and asked in surprise, "We must not have come to the wrong place, have those people moved?"
'
Harry simply waved his hand and said, "Who cares about all that land! Now that everyone's gone and the place is empty, it's a no-man's-land."
"I see that there are no mosquitoes or flies around here, and no trace of wild animals. It is truly a peaceful place to rest in peace."
Without saying another word, the three of them worked together to dig a pit and buried Nalohart.
After covering the mound with soil, a blue stone stele was erected.
Hermione simply pressed her slender hand on the top of the monument, and Lockhart's face appeared on the surface of the monument.
Ron stared blankly at the tombstone, and after a long while sighed, "I still can't believe that this liar is dead."
Even so, he still picked up his wand and began to carve words on the left side of the stone.
A professor.
"Looking back now, his time as a professor was quite interesting."
"Do you remember the dueling club he started? Harry almost scared Snape to death when they dueled."
Hermione joked for a moment, then extended her fingertip and wrote on the right side of the stone:
A liar.
Harry remained silent, drew his Gryffindor sword from his waist, and began to carve into the stone.
Gilderoy Lockhart is buried here.
The three of them then bowed repeatedly before the new grave.
Harry broke off a leafy branch, and with a light tap of his wand, the green leaves rustled and turned into snow-white paper money, which he then burned at the grave.
Ron also knelt before the grave, burning paper money, and sighed, "If Mr. Liu knew Lockhart was dead, he would definitely be very sad."
O
"On our way to Albania, he also said that Lockhart had a talent for being a spy."
When "Mr. Liu" was mentioned, Harry suddenly remembered that he had not been seen all night.
He hurriedly asked, "Where has Mr. Liu gone? Has he already returned to the Central Plains?"
Ron fiddled with the ashes, "Oh, he went to hunt down Grindelwald."